I'm 3 months on T. I've developed a male hairline which is I really like.

However, it seems to be going beyond that. I'm finding hair everywhere. I'm not sure why it's happening so fast except that I'm older.

Hopefully it will slow down. I'd rather not be bald by September.

Anyone else have this?   

I see my doctor next week and will also ask her but wanted your experience also.

Definitely ask your doctor about this.

I'm also older, nearly 3 months on T, and while I haven't had any noticeable hair loss yet, I expect to, given that there's male pattern baldness on both sides of my family. I'm particularly concerned right now, because my T level is too high, and my doc doesn't want to lower the dose again just yet, (it's already very low) because she thinks it may be caused by an interaction with some metabolic stuff that I have going on, that we're also treating. I've started using minoxidil (Rogaine), at least for the time being -- my doc said before that she can probably tweak my T dose to minimize balding, but that's sort of on hold right now. Once I'm fully transitioned, I'd certainly want to go to a lower, maintenance dose, in the hope that that might also help to slow going bald.

You might ask your doctor about finasteride (Propecia), which sounds like it might be a better drug: it works by blocking the enzyme that converts T to DHT, which is what actually causes MPB. (I inherited a supply of minoxidil, so I'm using that right now.)

Unfortunately, neither drug works for everyone.    

There's a pretty detailed article on dealing with MPB on the Hudson's site.

Life is full of tradeoffs....  m'self, I'd rather be bald than miserable, but I'd still prefer neither.

I wasn't ready to deal with hair loss right away. Once I decided that I was probably losing hair, I started taking finasteride. I took it for about two years total--until I was better equipped to deal with possible balding. I thought that the finasteride wasn't causing any side effects but was chagrined to find out that I was wrong. Once I stopped, my sex drive went up, my orgasms improved, and I think I had some other nice changes (can't remember offhand).

I've been monitoring my hair for the last eighteen months or so, and I have finally established that, yes, I am losing hair in the front. The hairline has receded noticeably, and what remains is thinning out. But the loss has been taking its time and seems to be slowing down. Then again, the hair has thinned quite a bit, so I have less to lose.

Someday, I might consider implants or something. The results can be pretty good. But for now, I'm taking things one day at a time.

Cool-thanks Tysilio for the link.  I'll ask her about Propecia.

That's interesting about T interacting with metabolic stuff?  What sort of metabolic issues are you dealing with?   (you can PM me if you like)

I ask because I have a chronic illness that I've been dealing with for the past 7 years. I've had some improvement since being on T (thankfully).

I agree that I'd rather be bald than miserable but prefer neither. 

It feels more like adolescent insecurities and fearing people's reactions who haven't seen me for a long time. If my hair stayed the way it is now I'd be happy but it's fading a bit rapidly. 

The link looks great and full of info so thanks again. 

I am concerned about my hair loss, but I don't worry about it much anymore. I certainly don't obsess over it as I used to do. If your hair is going rapidly, then you don't have much time to acclimate. It can be pretty traumatic.

Quote from: Arch on May 11, 2014, 01:11:22 AM
I wasn't ready to deal with hair loss right away. Once I decided that I was probably losing hair, I started taking finasteride. I took it for about two years total--until I was better equipped to deal with possible balding. I thought that the finasteride wasn't causing any side effects but was chagrined to find out that I was wrong. Once I stopped, my sex drive went up, my orgasms improved, and I think I had some other nice changes (can't remember offhand).

I've been monitoring my hair for the last eighteen months or so, and I have finally established that, yes, I am losing hair in the front. The hairline has receded noticeably, and what remains is thinning out. But the loss has been taking its time and seems to be slowing down. Then again, the hair has thinned quite a bit, so I have less to lose.

Someday, I might consider implants or something. The results can be pretty good. But for now, I'm taking things one day at a time.

Good to know about the Propecia's side effects. Yeah I think I'm not quite ready to deal with this rapid hair loss right now. I need to finish coming out to people (family-but relationships are already strained). 

I was surprised to see how rapidly my hairline was receding when I checked it tonight.  I'm glad to hear yours is slowing down. Maybe mine will too.

Since I'm on half the starting dose of T I was going to see if I could go to the regular dose once my blood work comes back but I think I'll stick to this dose so I can get used to the hair loss. 

Luckily the bloated face has lessened (knock on wood). 

I'll also look into implants.

Thanks Arch. 

Quote from: Arch on May 11, 2014, 01:20:57 AM
I am concerned about my hair loss, but I don't worry about it much anymore. I certainly don't obsess over it as I used to do. If your hair is going rapidly, then you don't have much time to acclimate. It can be pretty traumatic.

Thanks for this Arch. It's feeling a bit traumatic. I hope it stops here for awhile. 

You said that you are older--how much older? I started T when I was forty-six, so I was gearing up for balding. Even so, I was in a sort of emotional bubble because I had seen pics of my father and older brother, and, while both had receding hairlines, neither seemed to be actually balding.

A more recent photo of my brother reveals the same pattern I'm facing. I haven't seen recent pics of my father; the one I have is from his sixties, and he is over eighty now. I would expect him to have much less hair at his current age.

Hair loss is pretty tough on the younger trans guys; I think some simply think that it won't happen to them. But my closest friend is a cis guy who was balding when he was still an undergrad. At twenty-four, he had already lost a lot when I first met him. So it can happen at just about any age.

It's a weird thing - my father is very thin up top but not bald and until I started HRT I was probably well on the way to being a fully fledged chrome dome. Yet my younger brother (41) has never had a thinning hair problem. Neither has my father's much older brother (89). My father's father had a pretty good head of hair judging by pics of him before he died in his sixties, but my mother's father was a total baldy. It's a genetic crapshoot!

I wouldn't mind the thinning head hair quite as much if I could get MORE FREAKING BODY HAIR.

Ahem.

Now I've remembered another side effect of finasteride, at least for me. Since it interferes with masculinization, I started getting noticeable chest hair and experienced a dramatic change in my beard not long after stopping. The gains could have been part of the usual arc, but they were pretty sudden. Just a few months after I stopped taking the meds, bam! So the beard is looking pretty good. The chest hair, not so much. Still a fine fuzz in places and no fuzz in others.

4 Foods For A Hairy Chest

My father was always a fan of liver and onions. Now I know why.

I'm not sure if I'm just odd or too affected by trying to look like the dad of a teenager in public, but the idea of going bald never bothered me. I mean, gosh, always passing? Do I want that?

I'm sorry if this is corny nonsense you hear all the time, but baldness can be fine. Patrick Stewart and Michael Stipe are a couple of the sexiest men alive, and I'm sure there are men with hair who could pull off the bald thing quite well if they had to. When I was young I had friends who started losing hair in their twenties, and there were plenty girls who found them attractive or even exotic in spite of/because of it.

Logically I would probably chalk the whole thing up to being older, in which case it's probably just your genetic inheritance. If the men in your family have any particular issues you kind of have to inherit them when you start hormones. Or you might inherit them whether you take testosterone or not, and the hormones just make it look more normal.

Quote from: FelixI'm not sure if I'm just odd or too affected by trying to look like the dad of a teenager in public, but the idea of going bald never bothered me. I mean, gosh, always passing? Do I want that?

Well, there is that.

And I keep taking internet quizzes that tell me I'm Patrick Stewart.

Quote from: Felix on May 13, 2014, 04:57:00 AM
I'm not sure if I'm just odd or too affected by trying to look like the dad of a teenager in public, but the idea of going bald never bothered me. I mean, gosh, always passing? Do I want that?

I'm sorry if this is corny nonsense you hear all the time, but baldness can be fine. Patrick Stewart and Michael Stipe are a couple of the sexiest men alive, and I'm sure there are men with hair who could pull off the bald thing quite well if they had to. When I was young I had friends who started losing hair in their twenties, and there were plenty girls who found them attractive or even exotic in spite of/because of it.

Logically I would probably chalk the whole thing up to being older, in which case it's probably just your genetic inheritance. If the men in your family have any particular issues you kind of have to inherit them when you start hormones. Or you might inherit them whether you take testosterone or not, and the hormones just make it look more normal.

Thanks Felix. Nice answer. I'm still in the early phase of all this so a lot of it is feeling like normal early puberty omg! type of stuff.  Passing is the ultimate goal but more so than that is the freedom of finally being able to be myself.

I've been obsessed with looking at men's receding hairlines in all the movies I watch. 

I just didn't expect mine would happen so fast (I'd just like a little more time to get used to it). 

Come to think of it though my hair (which used to be very thick) was starting to recede a bit and I was finding a bunch in the shower drain. 

Well, as I said, it took me over two years to get used to the idea of balding. Many times I was alarmed by the amount of hair I lost in the shower--and that was while I was on finasteride! At some point, even after I stopped taking the meds, the hair loss slowed down. I'm fine with that, haha. I love my male hairline. I keep tabs on the thinning in front, but I'm not obsessed anymore. I know that women don't get MPB, so hair loss actually adds to my male presentation. I don't exactly have a great skull for it, but a lot of men don't.

Most people don't just lose whole hanks and become bald in a few months. Right now, your body is probably just catching up to where it would have been if you'd been born cis. I expect that the hair loss will slow down and stabilize at some point. Unless you take direct action, you'll just have to ride out the storm until then. If you do try finasteride, expect your other masculinization to slow down; you have to be willing to endure that in exchange for the hair. But if you need to buy some time, it's worth thinking about.

I can't help noticing, Arch, that your avatar is, umm... "well-endowed" in the hair department. 

I had a reasonable head of hair before I started transition. You should see what T has done to my beautiful ears!

Quote from: Arch on May 14, 2014, 01:46:07 AM
Well, as I said, it took me over two years to get used to the idea of balding. Many times I was alarmed by the amount of hair I lost in the shower--and that was while I was on finasteride! At some point, even after I stopped taking the meds, the hair loss slowed down. I'm fine with that, haha. I love my male hairline. I keep tabs on the thinning in front, but I'm not obsessed anymore. I know that women don't get MPB, so hair loss actually adds to my male presentation. I don't exactly have a great skull for it, but a lot of men don't.

Most people don't just lose whole hanks and become bald in a few months. Right now, your body is probably just catching up to where it would have been if you'd been born cis. I expect that the hair loss will slow down and stabilize at some point. Unless you take direct action, you'll just have to ride out the storm until then. If you do try finasteride, expect your other masculinization to slow down; you have to be willing to endure that in exchange for the hair. But if you need to buy some time, it's worth thinking about.

This is a relief to hear Arch. It makes sense that my body is catching up so hopefully it will slow down.   I'm going to have to go get a hair cut asap because my current hairstyle isn't working due to the receding hairline. 

I do love the masculine hair line...just not the rapid receding part.  : ) 

It's a toss up but right now I'm leaning towards finasteride just to give me some time to adjust as well as to come out to my estranged family (I haven't seen them in over a year). It just won't help matters if I show up with this much hair loss and tell them I'm trans and all that.    They will react pretty badly and I don't want to add fuel to the fire.  Once I come out to them I'll be disowned.

What's your hair like now Arch?

Quote from: ArchI had a reasonable head of hair before I started transition. You should see what T has done to my beautiful ears!

Awww. I'm so sorry to hear it. That is just sad.